The United States carried out precision military strikes against Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist camps in northwest Nigeria’s Sokoto State on Christmas Day, an operation ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump and coordinated with Nigerian authorities. While both governments described the strikes as a successful counterterrorism action that killed multiple militants, the operation has triggered intense debate in Nigeria and beyond over its strategic value, intelligence accuracy, religious framing, and whether it signals deeper U.S. military involvement in one of West Africa’s most complex security environments.
President Trump was the first to announce the strikes publicly on December 25, 2025, posting on his Truth Social platform that he had directed a “powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria.” He claimed the militants had been “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!”
The statement immediately sparked alarm across Nigeria, with many citizens, activists, and commentators expressing concern that the United States may have carried out a unilateral military action violating Nigerian sovereignty. Social media platforms were flooded with questions about whether Nigeria had approved the strikes and fears that the country could become a new theatre for expanded U.S. military operations in Africa.
Within hours, however, officials in both Washington and Abuja moved to clarify the situation. U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) confirmed that the strikes were conducted “in coordination with Nigerian authorities,” while Nigerian officials stressed that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had explicitly approved the operation following high-level consultations. Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar and Information Minister Mohammed Idris said the action followed intelligence-sharing discussions with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and was jointly planned.
“The precision strikes were executed with the full involvement of the Armed Forces of Nigeria,” Idris said, adding that senior defence and foreign affairs officials supervised the operation. This framing helped ease early tensions, repositioning the strikes as a joint counterterrorism effort rather than an act of foreign intervention.
According to Nigerian officials, two major ISIS-linked terrorist enclaves located within the Bauni forest in Tangaza Local Government Area of Sokoto State were targeted. U.S. Africa Command said there were multiple militant casualties but did not specify the identities of those killed or clarify which armed factions were hit, noting the presence of numerous violent groups operating in the region.
Details of the operation suggest a significant show of U.S. military capability. Nigeria said the United States deployed 16 GPS-guided precision munitions using MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial platforms, launched from “maritime platforms domiciled in the Gulf of Guinea.” Some debris from the munitions reportedly fell in Jabo village in Tambuwal Local Government Area of Sokoto State, as well as in neighbouring Kwara State near a hotel, though authorities said no civilians were injured.
Other U.S. media reports indicated that the strikes were launched from a U.S. Navy warship positioned in the Gulf of Guinea. A Pentagon-released video appeared to show at least one missile being fired from a naval vessel flying the American flag. The primary weapons were widely reported to be Tomahawk cruise missiles — long-range, sea-launched, precision-guided munitions typically fired from U.S. surface ships or submarines. More than a dozen Tomahawks were reportedly used in the attack.
No manned aircraft or U.S. ground forces were involved, making the operation a stand-off naval missile strike rather than a drone-only or close-air support mission, which has been more typical of past U.S. counterterrorism actions in Africa. The strikes followed weeks of increasingly sharp rhetoric from the Trump administration over alleged violence against Christians in Nigeria. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth later hinted that further strikes could follow, saying there was “more to come.”
Despite official assurances, analysts have questioned both the choice of location and the broader strategic logic behind the strikes. Northwestern Nigeria, including Sokoto State, has for years been plagued primarily by heavily armed criminal gangs known locally as “bandits,” who engage in mass kidnappings, cattle rustling, and village raids. While jihadist elements have increasingly appeared in the region, it is not considered the epicentre of Nigeria’s Islamist insurgency.
That distinction belongs to the northeast, particularly Borno State, where Boko Haram and its rival offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), have waged a brutal insurgency since 2009, killing tens of thousands and displacing millions.
“If you’re going to strike, then it shouldn’t be the least affected areas,” said Victoria Ekhomu, an analyst and head of the Association of Industrial Security & Safety Operators of Nigeria. “A more obvious target would have been northeastern Borno state, the epicentre of Nigeria’s jihadist conflict.”
Foreign Minister Tuggar acknowledged the complexity of Nigeria’s security landscape, noting the presence of multiple armed actors. He cited the activities of ISWAP, the al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), as well as groups known locally as Lakurawa and Mahmuda. However, analysts remain divided over how closely some of these groups are linked to global jihadist networks.
Lakurawa, widely regarded as the main jihadist group operating in Sokoto State, has recently been linked by some researchers to Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), which is active in neighbouring Niger and Mali. Others, however, argue that the term “Lakurawa” is used loosely to describe a range of armed groups, making definitive attribution difficult. The possible expansion of JNIM into Nigeria has also raised alarm, particularly after the group claimed an attack near the Nigeria–Benin border in October.
Beyond questions of targeting, Trump’s religious framing of the strikes has drawn sharp criticism. In October and November, he accused Nigeria’s government of allowing what he called a “genocide” of Christians — language long used by segments of the U.S. and European religious right to describe Nigeria’s overlapping conflicts.
The Nigerian government and independent analysts strongly reject this characterisation, pointing out that violence across the country has killed Muslims and Christians alike, often driven by a mix of criminality, local disputes, ethnic tensions, and extremist ideology rather than religion alone.
“The fact that it was Christmas when we were trying to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ suggests Trump has his own agenda,” Ekhomu said. “He’s focused on Christians.”
The timing of the strikes, following weeks of U.S. reconnaissance flights tracked by open-source analysts, has only intensified suspicions that domestic U.S. political considerations played a role in the decision.
For now, Nigerian officials insist the operation was narrowly focused, intelligence-driven, and successful, with no civilian casualties. Yet lingering questions remain about whether the strikes will meaningfully weaken jihadist networks, risk inflaming local grievances, or mark the beginning of a more assertive U.S. military role in Nigeria’s northwest — a region already strained by banditry, porous borders, and the spillover of Sahelian instability.
As Washington and Abuja signal that further operations may be forthcoming, the challenge will be balancing counterterrorism cooperation with sovereignty concerns, accurate threat assessment, and avoiding narratives that oversimplify one of Africa’s most intricate security crises.
